I first encountered my husband one summer at a swim party. We were 12. He got in a fight with another boy and so impressed me that he became the headline of every note I would pass for the remainder of 6th grade. My next major encounter with him was two years later. We were 14. It was fall. We were at the high school football game sitting on a grassy hill, next to the bleachers watching – or at least pretending to watch – the game. I tried to not look at him too often. Suddenly – he started to move toward me. Before I could give him the smile I’d rehearsed 29 times in my bathroom mirror, he grabbed my blue converse high top covered ankles and drug me down the hill as fast as he could run. I dug my fingers in the thick, cool sod but I could not stop the momentum or the scream detonating from my throat. When we finally ran out of grass and hill, he turned to me and gave me a smile and his hand. I returned my hand and a smile (I forgot the one I’d rehearsed) to him. On the way down that hill, in just seconds, I lost my voice, two heirloom rings and my favorite jeans to grass stains, but I found the love of my life.
We married 6 years later. During our years together – we’ve had 4 children, 5 dogs, 1 cat, and 10 cars. We’ve lived in 10 homes, traveled to 27 states and 2 countries. He taught me to eat vegetables and fruit, and I taught him to eat meat. Since those first encounters, we accumulated a montage of them. Treasured ones, so valuable that we can live forever off of their interest alone. Dark and dingy ones, the kind we only hope to forget in time. The neither brilliant nor the dull ones – the just matter-of-fact ones - that attached to us much like birthdates and social security numbers. Individually – we could take some and leave others, but like ingredients to a favorite recipe, it took all of them to make our marriage delicious.
What if after the first couple of encounters – I kept trying to recreate them? What if every time we went on a date – I wanted him to take me to that same football stadium, pull me down the same hill, ruin the same jeans (if only I could get into those jeans again!) and me experience all the same emotions? What if all of these years, every encounter that wasn’t dazzling completely dissuaded us from our devotion to each? What would our relationship look like?
A few weeks ago my husband, friends and I ate at the Red Planet Diner in Sedona Arizona. It celebrates the community’s fixation on the metaphysical and paranormal. It particularly came about as the result of over 5,000 visitors gathering at the Bell Rock vortex in 1987 in hopes that the top of the rock would open and expose a UFO or some kind of extraterrestrial happening. This event served as a catalyst to the current new age culture and tourism of Sedona.
When my husband read the story to me, I rolled my eyes and made that sound someone makes when they feel superior to all humanity. In the middle of my snooty “guffaw” truth slinked in from nowhere, grabbed my ankles and pulled me down my haughty hill.
Years ago – in the infant stages of my spiritual journey, I encountered God many times in inexplicable ways. I could physically feel His presence, I saw visions, and experienced His power surging through me to help others. I fell in love, and ashamedly it was more with encountering God than God Himself. I became addicted to the euphoric physical reaction to Him. I found myself attempting to reset the same stage week after week, day after day to recreate that spiritual high. Eventually – like any addict – I became desperate - willing to do just about anything for another “hit” of God’s Spirit.
I began to question everything. Was I crazy? Had I ever really encountered God? Did God still love me? Had I made him angry? What had I done so terribly wrong? I felt abandoned, rejected and lonely - like I was the kid forgotten at the gas station on a family trip.
One afternoon at the pinnacle of my misery, my four children and husband went outside to play in the yard. Oklahoma has two official perfect days of weather a year – and it was one of them. They begged me to go play with them, but in an act of arrogant penance I chose to clean the house instead. In my OCD frenzy I glanced out the window and saw their faces exploding with smiles of delight, heard their voices pealing melodiously with life, and watched their bodies moving like ballerinas carried and thrown about by the breeze in natures magnificent theater.
Have you ever had one of those moments when you crumple under the weight of sudden truth?
How do we get things so wrong? Maybe it’s just because at the time, we had a limited understanding of what was really happening.
Between ages three and four, my mother and I lived with my grandparents. My Mema watched me in the evenings while Mom worked at Anthony’s department store. One evening, I noticed Mema getting particularly “nervous” as we used to call it. She circled anxiously throughout the house like a racehorse on a track. Her circles quickened and she made her best effort to shoot me a sharp smile every now and then in an attempt to camouflage the panic in her eyes. Soon, sounds started to come from her mouth – starting out low and mumbled and growing increasingly high and bell like.
All of the sudden a siren sounded from somewhere – I wasn’t completely sure that it didn’t come from Mema until she snatched me up from my dolls and held me suffocatingly close to her as she danced “a jig” in her now three foot circles. She began to plead “Jesus! Save us from the tomato!” Terror shot through me like a bullet and I clutched her like I did the tree I climbed in her back yard. I hated tomatoes. They were squishy and tart and I didn’t want them near anything on my plate. I could not understand how one could evidently grow large and formidable that it could elicit this response from my otherwise peaceable grandmother.
The lightening whipped the sky, the thunder growled, and the winds slapped the screen door. Mema asked me if I “had Jesus in my heart”. I did not want to take any chances with a giant tomato about to pummel me so she stopped dancing circles long enough for us to kneel in her living room as I prayed to the soundtrack of sirens, lightening, thunder, and slamming screen doors. This began my Christian experience.
This is before I understood Oklahoma only had two beautiful days, and the others likely offered ice, humidity or tornadoes. Of course looking back I realize my mistake, but in the moment I really didn’t know what I was encountering.
As I watched my family out the window – I realized I had made a similar mistake. I thought encountering God was visions and goose bumps. Holding Pine-sol in one hand and paper towels in the other I finally understood that some of the most profound ways that I could encounter Him were playing football together in my back yard, without me. How many encounters had I missed? How many times had God tried to woo me, get my attention? I felt myself sliding down a hill – ankles first.
Today, My husband and I have been married 17 years. The many “encounters” I have had with him don’t mean anything outside of our relationship. If encounters were all we wanted, we wouldn’t have lasted this long. But we want a relationship – a good one – one that will experience encounters of every kind – brilliant ones, dull ones, matter-of-fact ones and many unexpected ones.
Now, when we laugh about his romantic, chivalrous ankle pull, he tells me – “how else was I suppose to get your attention?”
We married 6 years later. During our years together – we’ve had 4 children, 5 dogs, 1 cat, and 10 cars. We’ve lived in 10 homes, traveled to 27 states and 2 countries. He taught me to eat vegetables and fruit, and I taught him to eat meat. Since those first encounters, we accumulated a montage of them. Treasured ones, so valuable that we can live forever off of their interest alone. Dark and dingy ones, the kind we only hope to forget in time. The neither brilliant nor the dull ones – the just matter-of-fact ones - that attached to us much like birthdates and social security numbers. Individually – we could take some and leave others, but like ingredients to a favorite recipe, it took all of them to make our marriage delicious.
What if after the first couple of encounters – I kept trying to recreate them? What if every time we went on a date – I wanted him to take me to that same football stadium, pull me down the same hill, ruin the same jeans (if only I could get into those jeans again!) and me experience all the same emotions? What if all of these years, every encounter that wasn’t dazzling completely dissuaded us from our devotion to each? What would our relationship look like?
A few weeks ago my husband, friends and I ate at the Red Planet Diner in Sedona Arizona. It celebrates the community’s fixation on the metaphysical and paranormal. It particularly came about as the result of over 5,000 visitors gathering at the Bell Rock vortex in 1987 in hopes that the top of the rock would open and expose a UFO or some kind of extraterrestrial happening. This event served as a catalyst to the current new age culture and tourism of Sedona.
When my husband read the story to me, I rolled my eyes and made that sound someone makes when they feel superior to all humanity. In the middle of my snooty “guffaw” truth slinked in from nowhere, grabbed my ankles and pulled me down my haughty hill.
Years ago – in the infant stages of my spiritual journey, I encountered God many times in inexplicable ways. I could physically feel His presence, I saw visions, and experienced His power surging through me to help others. I fell in love, and ashamedly it was more with encountering God than God Himself. I became addicted to the euphoric physical reaction to Him. I found myself attempting to reset the same stage week after week, day after day to recreate that spiritual high. Eventually – like any addict – I became desperate - willing to do just about anything for another “hit” of God’s Spirit.
I began to question everything. Was I crazy? Had I ever really encountered God? Did God still love me? Had I made him angry? What had I done so terribly wrong? I felt abandoned, rejected and lonely - like I was the kid forgotten at the gas station on a family trip.
One afternoon at the pinnacle of my misery, my four children and husband went outside to play in the yard. Oklahoma has two official perfect days of weather a year – and it was one of them. They begged me to go play with them, but in an act of arrogant penance I chose to clean the house instead. In my OCD frenzy I glanced out the window and saw their faces exploding with smiles of delight, heard their voices pealing melodiously with life, and watched their bodies moving like ballerinas carried and thrown about by the breeze in natures magnificent theater.
Have you ever had one of those moments when you crumple under the weight of sudden truth?
How do we get things so wrong? Maybe it’s just because at the time, we had a limited understanding of what was really happening.
Between ages three and four, my mother and I lived with my grandparents. My Mema watched me in the evenings while Mom worked at Anthony’s department store. One evening, I noticed Mema getting particularly “nervous” as we used to call it. She circled anxiously throughout the house like a racehorse on a track. Her circles quickened and she made her best effort to shoot me a sharp smile every now and then in an attempt to camouflage the panic in her eyes. Soon, sounds started to come from her mouth – starting out low and mumbled and growing increasingly high and bell like.
All of the sudden a siren sounded from somewhere – I wasn’t completely sure that it didn’t come from Mema until she snatched me up from my dolls and held me suffocatingly close to her as she danced “a jig” in her now three foot circles. She began to plead “Jesus! Save us from the tomato!” Terror shot through me like a bullet and I clutched her like I did the tree I climbed in her back yard. I hated tomatoes. They were squishy and tart and I didn’t want them near anything on my plate. I could not understand how one could evidently grow large and formidable that it could elicit this response from my otherwise peaceable grandmother.
The lightening whipped the sky, the thunder growled, and the winds slapped the screen door. Mema asked me if I “had Jesus in my heart”. I did not want to take any chances with a giant tomato about to pummel me so she stopped dancing circles long enough for us to kneel in her living room as I prayed to the soundtrack of sirens, lightening, thunder, and slamming screen doors. This began my Christian experience.
This is before I understood Oklahoma only had two beautiful days, and the others likely offered ice, humidity or tornadoes. Of course looking back I realize my mistake, but in the moment I really didn’t know what I was encountering.
As I watched my family out the window – I realized I had made a similar mistake. I thought encountering God was visions and goose bumps. Holding Pine-sol in one hand and paper towels in the other I finally understood that some of the most profound ways that I could encounter Him were playing football together in my back yard, without me. How many encounters had I missed? How many times had God tried to woo me, get my attention? I felt myself sliding down a hill – ankles first.
Today, My husband and I have been married 17 years. The many “encounters” I have had with him don’t mean anything outside of our relationship. If encounters were all we wanted, we wouldn’t have lasted this long. But we want a relationship – a good one – one that will experience encounters of every kind – brilliant ones, dull ones, matter-of-fact ones and many unexpected ones.
Now, when we laugh about his romantic, chivalrous ankle pull, he tells me – “how else was I suppose to get your attention?”
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